History of Montgomery & Fulton Counties by F. W. Beers & Co. Montgomery County, Ch11

THE HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY

CHAPTER XI. ST. LEGER'S SIEGE OF FORT SCHUYLER AND THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY-- ROSTER OF THE LATTER.

At the same time that Burgoyne began his march to the northern frontier of New York, Col. Barry St. Leger was dispatched via. the St. Lawrence to Oswego to join the tories and Indians congregating there under Sir John Johnson and Brant, who had been made a captain in the British army. At the end of July the invading force, consisting of seventeen hundred Indians, tories, British regulars, and a few Hessians, set out for Fort Schuyler. It was St. Leger's intention after capturing that post to sweep down the Mohawk valley, crush out the rebellious element and cooperate with Burgoyne.

On the 2nd of August an advance party commanded by Lieutenant Bird and Brant, arrived before the fort, which was garrisoned by seven hundred and fifty men under Colonel Gansevoort, with six weeks provisions and plenty of ammunition for small arms, but lamentably lacking in cartridges for the cannon, there being only about four hundred, or nine per day to each gun for six weeks. The garrison had no flag when the enemy appeared, but a curious patchwork conforming to the Congressional regulations soon waved over the beleaguered fortress. Shirts were cut up to form the white stripes ; the red was supplied by bits of scarlet cloth, and the ground for the stars was furnished by a blue cloak. On the 3d, Col. St. Leger arrived with his whole force and immediately demanded a surrender of the fort, sending in at the same time a copy of a pompous manifesto intended to shake the courageous by its threats and seduce the timid by its promises. It was, however, treated with derision, and active hostilities began.

As soon as St. Leger's advance upon Fort Schuyler was known to the committee and officers of Tryon county, Gen, Herkimer summoned the militia to the field for the relief of the garrison. The patriots who had desponded when the danger threatened them from a distance, roused themselves in its presence to a heroic effort for the protection of their homes and families. Not only the militia, but most of the members of the county committee took the field. Gen. Herkimer soon found himself at the head of more than eight hundred men eager for action. The rendezvous was the little stockade fort built at German Flats the year before by Col. Dayton and named after him. The little army now assembled here was chiefly composed of sturdy, resolute farmers, some in uniform, but more in homespun. Gathered in little groups they expressed, excitedly, in a mixture of English and German, their even insubordinate eagerness to meet the once dreaded foe.

On the 4th, Gen. Herkimer's force set out for Fort Schuyler along a road which was little more than a rude path through the wilderness, and in places almost impassable for the baggage wagons. In the evening of the 5th they encamped in the neighborhood of Oriskany. From this point Gen. Herkimer sent forward Adam Helmer and two others to inform Col. Gansevoort of his approach. The discharge of three cannon at the fort, in rapid succession, was to be the signal of their arrival there, and for Gen. Herkimer to advance upon the besiegers while Col. Gansevoort made a sortie against their camp.

St. Leger had been notified of the advance of the militia, and early in the morning of the 6th, detached Brant with a large body of the Indians, Major Watts, with a division ofJohnson's Greens, and Col. Butler, with his Rangers, to intercept them. Gen. Herkimer, brave, but cautious, had determined not to leave his camp until he should be reinforced, or should hear the signal guns. His subordinates, however, in their excessive eagerness to press forward, became almost mutinous on the morning of the 6th. " Doubtless," they said, " the messengers had been killed or captured, and the sound of the signal cannon was not to be expected." In deference to their continued complaints, Gen. Herkimer held a council of his principal officers, with whom he discussed the question of an immediate advance, showing the folly of his ill-equipped militia attacking double their number of well armed troops, without reinforcements, or even an understanding with Gansevoort. His officers, however, were impatient of delay, and did not conceal their contempt for the prudent advice of their General. Cols. Cox and Paris denounced him as a coward and a Tory. Suppressing his indignation at this outrageous insult, Herkimer told them that he considered himself charged with the care as well as the leadership of his men, and did not wish to place them in a perilous position from which it would be impossible to extricate them ; he added, that those who were boasting loudest of their courage, would be the first to run in the face of the enemy, and satisfied the clamor of his officious subordinates by giving the order to march. The troops with shoutings, grasped their arms, and the undisciplined regiments of Cols. Cox, Paris, Visscher and Klock, rushed forward.

The line of march soon led into a curving ravine, with a marshy bottom, traversed by a causeway of logs and earth. Along this road the headstrong patriots were pursuing their hasty march, when the guards in front and flank were suddenly shot down, and the surrounding forest rang with the blood-curdling yells of the savages. The latter immediately closed up the gap by which the patriot force had entered their fatal circle. In so doing they cut off from the main body the baggage-train and the regiment of Col. Visscher. The latter took to flight, as predicted by their general, but did not thereby escape the punishment of their temerity; for they were pursued and cut off by a detachment of the Indians. The regiments surrounded in the ravine were thrown into dire confusion by the fire of their concealed enemy, and for a time seemed likely to be annihilated before they could make any effectual defence. In this dreadful extremity, however, they were not panic-stricken; but, after the first shock, resolving to sell their lives dearly, they fought with the courage and skill of veterans. The slaughter among them was fearful. Their danger was increased when they were disabled by wounds, for at every opportunity the savages darted from their coverts, with knife and tomahawk, to complete the work of the musket-balls that, from every side, tore through the disordered body of patriots floundering in the morass.

Early in the action Gen. Herkimer was severely wounded by a ball which shattered one of his legs, just below the knee, and killed his horse. On being taken up he coolly directed his saddle placed against a tree; supporting himself upon it, he lighted his pipe, and with a hail-storm of bullets cutting down his men all about him, calmly directed the battle, nobly rebuking those who, a few hours before, in pressing the march into this fatal trap, had called him a coward and a traitor.

The unequal combat had continued nearly an hour before any orderly and concerted action was attempted by the patriot troops. Captain Seeber, without orders, threw the remnant of his company into a circle, the better to repel the attacks of the enemy, who were by degrees closing in upon them. The example was followed by other sections of Herkimer's little army, whose defence from this time became so effective that it was thought necessary for a part of the Royal Greens and Butler's Rangers to make a bayonet charge. This brought the Mohawk Valley patriots at last face to face with their hated foes in deadly personal struggle. Hardly had the battle assumed this terrible form, when a heavy thunder-storm broke over the belligerents; the tories, upon whom the fight in its present phase was telling severely, gladly drew off to a safe distance, and there was a lull in the strife of arms while the war of the elements continued.

Herkimer's men took advantage of this circumstance to concentrate in a circle upon an advantageous piece of ground, where they more hopefully awaited a renewal of the attack. Another piece of tactics now adopted was the placing of two men behind a single tree, to fire alternately, thus protecting each other from the savages, who, when a marksman was alone, rushed upon and tomahawked him as soon as he had fired, and before he could reload. As the pouring rain ceased, the enemy renewed their assault. They were mostly tory refugees from Tryon county, and their old neighbors, recognizing them as such, wreaked upon them the resentment engendered by years of controversy, with their experiences of insult and injury. Springing from their lines, the patriots of the Mohawk rushed with tiger-like ferocity upon the men who were leading a horde of heartless savages to the destruction of their families and homes, and thrust them through with the bayonet, or with the knife in closer grapple. Meanwhile the Indians, good for nothing at the point of the bayonet, and severely punished in the later stage of the battle, lost heart and wavered.

The booming of cannon in the direction of the fort now came gratefully to the ears of the patriot soldiers. Col. Willet was assaulting St. Leger's camp. The tory Col. Butler, thinking Herkimer's men might be expecting a reinforcement from the fort, had the uniforms of a detachment of Johnson's Greens disguised so as to make them resemble a company of Americans, and sent them toward the patriot position from the direction of the fort. The ruse was well nigh successful. Lieut. Jacob Sammons was deceived by it, and announced to Capt. Gardinier the approach of support. That officer, however, eyed the advancing party with suspicion, and when they were within hearing, hailed them. They were already so near that one of the captain's men recognized in their ranks an acquaintance whom he supposed a friend. Stepping forward to greet him, he was seized as a prisoner. Capt. Gardinier sprang to the rescue, and in the fierce struggle which ensued killed three of the disguised tories. Some of his men, not yet undeceived, warned him that he was killing his friends, but he cried out: "They are not our men; they are the enemy-fire away!" A volley of bullets was sent whizzing among the tories, and thirty of them, together with many Indian warriors, fell. The survivors charged furiously. They were met in the same spirit, and the forest again rang with the clash of steel and the yells of the savages. The latter could not long abide a contest on even terms, however brave behind trees and at hacking the wounded; and seeing their ranks fast thinning and the stubborn stand of the provincials, they became disheartened and raised the signal for retreat -"Oonah! Oonah!" Panic seizing them, they fled, followed by a shower of bullets and the frantic cheers of the surviving patriots. The Tories, deserted by their dusky allies, retreated precipitately, leaving the field in possession of the Tryon county militia, whom almost a miracle had saved from extermination. Thus ended the battle of Oriskany, one of the bloodiest and most hotly contested fields of the Revolution. During the six hours' conflict nearly two hundred of the patriots had perished, and as many of the enemy, including nearly a hundred Indian warriors.

As the shower which deluged the Oriskany battlefield subsided, Col. Willet, with two hundred and fifty men and a three-pounder, sallied from Fort Schuyler and fell upon the British entrenchments so unexpectedly that the troops left in them and the savages remaining in their adjoining camp had not time to form, and were driven helter-skelter into the woods. The attacking party held the enemy's position long enough to transfer from it to the fort twenty-one wagon loads of all manner of spoils, including five British flags and the coat of Sir John Johnson, who was glad to escape in his shirt sleeves across the river. Willet's command regained the fort without the loss of a man, and hung out the captured standards to the view of St. Leger, who returned just too late to intercept the victorious provincials.

The patriots who remained unharmed upon the Oriskany battlefield set about removing their wounded, of whom about fifty were carried to places of safety. General Herkimer was borne to his residence, where he died about ten days after the battle, from the effects of a clumsy amputation. Among the prisoners taken by the British was Col. Paris, who was afterward murdered by the Indians, together with many other captives. Maj. John Frey was wounded and taken prisoner, and would have been slain by his own brother-a tory-but for the interference of bystanders. The sense of victory could not console the many homes in the Mohawk Valley which were represented among the corpses moldering in the bloody ravine of Oriskany, and every hamlet had reason long to mourn the rashness of some of the brave men who went forth to save it from invasion.

The garrison of Fort Schuyler was so completely environed by its besiegers, that nothing could be learned of the result of Herkimer's effort. St. Leger took advantage of the fact by compelling Col. Bellinger and Major Frey, who were prisoners in his camp, to write a letter to Col. Gansevoort, reporting the disastrous failure of the effort to relieve him, assuring him that there was no hope and advising him to surrender. They were forced to say that their anxiety for the good of their friends in the fort led them to write as they did, since the enemy were in overpowering force, and Burgoyne's army probably already before Albany, the fall of which place would be followed by the conquest of the Mohawk valley. This letter was delivered by Col. Butler, St. Leger's Adjutant, to Col. Gansevoort, with a verbal demand for surrender, which from its informality, the latter refused to recognize. He, however, gave audience next day to three British officers who addressed him at length, representing that the only salvation of the garrison was an immediate surrender, as the Indians, who were extremely exasperated by their losses, would slaughter his men if they held out longer, and were on the point of sending a large party down the valley to massacre the inhabitants, who were defenceless, now that Herkimer's army was, as they represented, destroyed. They asserted that Burgoyne was then in Albany, which insured the fall of the fort. If it was promptly surrendered, the garrison would be protected from the savages, but the latter would soon become uncontrollable. Col. Gansevoort having refused, as before, to recognize any verbal demand, St. Leger on the 9th, sent him a written summons to the same effect as his subordinate's speech, and like that, betraying a solicitude for the immediate possession of the fort, which was incompatible with an assurance that it must certainly fall into his hands.

Col. Gansevoort briefly replied that he should defend the fort to the last extremity. Siege operations were thereupon renewed with increased vigor, but the artillery of the enemy was so light as to make but little impression. It was feared, however, that the garrison might be starved into capitulation, if not relieved, and Col. Willet and Maj. Stockwell set out in the night of the l0th to pass the enemy's lines, go down the river and rally, if possible, the militia of the county, with whom the Colonel was deservedly popular. Reaching Albany after a perilous journey, Col. Willet found Gen. Arnold with a Massachusetts brigade starting for the relief of the beleagured post. The force immediately set out, and reaching Fort Dayton, halted for the local militia to assemble.

In the mean time St. Leger was not idle. His next move was to issue an address to the people of Tryon county, signed by Sir John Johnson and Cols. Claus and Butler, in which he hoped by threats of Indian barbarities to induce them to influence Col. Gansevoort to surrender. This appeal artfully expressed the utmost concern for the fate of those to whom it was addressed, and an ardent desire on the part of its authors for peace and reconciliation, which they condescended to grant, in spite of the injuries to which they had been subjected, and the fact that they were at the head of a victorious army. After these words of peace and promise, the alternative in case of continued resistance was set forth :

"You have, no doubt, great reason to dread the resentment of the Indians on account of the loss they sustained in the late action, and the mulish obstinacy of your troops in this garrison, who have no resource but themselves ; for which reasons the Indians declare, that if they do not surrender the garrison without further opposition, they will put every soul to death -not only the garrison, but the whole county-without any regard to age, sex or friends, for which reason it is become your indispensable duty, as you must answer the consequences, to send a deputation of your principal people to oblige them immediately to what they, in a very little time, must be forced-surrender the garrison, in which case we-will engage on the faith of Christians to protect you from the violence of the Indians." This document only brought trouble upon some of the messengers who circulated it. Walter Butler, son of Col. John Butler, having come down the valley on this mission, was arrested near Fort Dayton, tried as a spy by Gen. Arnold, convicted, and though saved from death by the intercessions of some officers who knew him, was sent to Albany and their imprisoned. General Arnold issued a stirring proclamation, well calculated to neutralize the tory manifesto and encourage the patriots of the valley.

St. Leger ran forward his trenches to within a hundred and fifty yards of the fort, but the sharp firing of the garrison prevented a nearer approach. He shelled the fortress, but with little effect. Its defenders, however ignorant of the relief on the way to them, began to be apprehensive, and some even suggested a surrender. Gansevoort would not entertain this idea, having resolved, if his supplies were exhausted, to make a sortie by night and cut his way through the enemy's lines, or die in the attempt. He was happily spared this desperate resort, for on the 22nd of August, St. Leger broke up his camp and hastily retreated, leaving his tents and baggage, with most of his artillery, to fall into the hands of the brave garrison. This movement, as surprising and mysterious as it was welcome to the beseiged, was the result of a ruse perpetrated by Gen. Arnold, who released a rough ignorant fellow named Han Yost Schuyler, captured at the same time with Walter Butler, on condition that he should go to the camp of St. Leger with an extravagant report of the force which was at hand to raise the siege. Bullets were fired through his clothes to corroborate the story he was to tell of having had a narrow escape, and a friendly Oneida Indian arranged to reach St. Leger about the same time from another quarter with similar intelligence. The effect of their tale upon the British commander and his followers need not be repeated. The savages, disgusted with the result of the campaign, in the confusion of the flight robbed and even killed some of their white allies, and as St. Leger reported " became more formidable than the enemy they had to expect."

Han Yost Schuyler managed to escape from the retreating force at Wood Creek and returning to Fort Schuyler, explained St. Leger's sudden departure and announced Arnold's approach. That officer on his way to the Fort was met on the 2yd by a messenger, who told him that the besiegers had fled, and learning this sent out a detachment in pursuit. The next day he reached Fort Schuyler, where he was received with lively demonstrations of joy. Gansevoort had also sent a party after the flying enemy, who took a number of prisoners and a large quantity of spoil, including St. Leger's writing desk, containing his private papers.

The successful defence of Fort Schuyler was one of the principal causes of the failure of Burgoyne's campaign, which at one time promised to strike a fatal blow at American liberties. The co-operation of St. Leger's considerable army with that of Burgoyne's might, perhaps, have saved the latter from capture by the provincials. That it was arrested and turned back at the very gate of the Mohawk valley was due to the valor of the defenders of Fort Schuyler and those who went to their support. The men who beat off the terrible onset in the Oriskany defile, holding the enemy while Willet's little force sacked their camp, deserve a prominent place in the record of our forefathers' heroism; but the preservation of the details of the Revolutionary struggle in the Mohawk valley was so neglected at the only time when they could have been rescued from oblivion that not even a majority of the soldiers of the brave Herkimer can be named. Their names so far as known are here inserted ; a due proportion of them, it will be seen, went from within the present limits of Montgomery and Fulton counties :

ROSTER OF ORISKANY.
*Brig. Gen. Nicholas Herkimer.
Col. Frederick Visscher, Mohawk.
*Col. Ebenezer Cox, Canajoharie.
Col. Jacob G. Klock, Palatine, (St. Johnsville.)
Col. Peter Bellinger, German Flats.
Col. John Bellinger.
*Frederick Ayer (Oyer), Schuyler.
** Major Blauvelt, Mohawk.
+Captain George Henry Bell, Fall Hill.
*Joseph Bell, Fall Hill.
Nicholas Bell, Fall Hill.
fCaptain John Breadbeg, Palatine.
Adam Bellinger.
** Lieut. Col. Frederick Bellinger, German Flats.
*Samuel Billington, Palatine, Committee of Safety.
*-- Billington.
*Major John Blevin.
*Captain Jacob Bowman, Canajoharie.
John Boyer.
Lieut. Col. Samuel Campbell, Cherry Valley.
*Lieut. Robert Campbell, Cherry Valley.
Major Samuel Clyde, Cherry Valley.
Jacob Castler.
John Castler.
Adam Cassler.
Jacob Clemens, Schuyler.
Captain A. Copeman, Minden.
William Cox, St. Johnsville.
Richard Coppernoll.
*Robert Crouse, Canajoharie.
*Benjamin Davis.
*Captain John Davis, Mohawk.
Martinus Davis, Mohawk, A brother of Captain John Davis).
Nicholas De Graft, Amsterdam.
Captain Marx DeMuth, Deerfield.
*Captain Andrew Dillenback, Palatine.
John Doxtader, German Flats.
*Captain Henry Dievendorff, Canajoharie.
Hon. (John) Peter Dunckel, Freysbush.
Hon. Garrett Dunckel, Freysbush.
Hon. Nicholas Dunckel, Freysbush.
Francis Dunckel, Freysbush.
*John Dygert, Committee of Safety.
Captain William Dygert, German Flats.
*Maj. Tohn Eisenlord, Stone Arabia.
Peter Ehle, Palatine.
Jacob Empie, Palatine.
Henry Failing, Canajoharie.
Jelles Fonda.
Captain Adam Fonda.
Valentine Fralick, Palatine.
++Major John Frey, Palatine.
*Captain Christopher P. Fox, Palatine.
Captain Christopher W. Fox, Palatine.
Charles Fox, Palatine.
Peter Fox, Palatine.
Christopher Fox, Palatine, (Nephews of Christopher W. Fox).
George Geortner, Canajoharie.
Captain Lawrence Gras, Minden.
* Nicholas Gray, Palatine.
Lieut. Samuel Gray, Herkimer.
*Captain -- Graves. .
+Capt. Jacob Gardinier, Mohawk.
+Lieut. Samuel Gardinier, Mohawk.
+Lieut. Petrus Groot, Amsterdam.
Henry Harter, German Flats.
Captain George Herkimer.
John Adam Helmer, German Flats.
*Captain Frederick Helmer, German Flats.
John Heyck, Palatine.
Nicholas Hill.
Lieut. Yost House, Minden.
*Lieut. Col. Abel Hunt, Canajoharie.
Andrew Keller, Palatine.
Jacob Keller, Palatine.
Solomon Keller, Palatine.
*Maj. Dennis Klapsattle, German Flats.
Jacob Klapsattle, German Flats.
Peter Kilts, Palatine.
John Klock, St. Johnsville.
John I. Clock, St. Johnsville.
Henry Lonus, Minden.
Solomon Longshore, Canajoharie.
*Jacob Markell, Springfield.
*William Merckley, Palatine.
John P. Miller, Minden.
Jacob Moyer (now Myers), German Flats.
Lieut. David McMaster, Florida.
Adam Miller, Minden.
Henry Miller, Minden.
David Murray, Fonda.
Christian Nelles.
John D. Nellis, Palatine.
Peter Nestle, Palatine.
*Hon. Isaac Paris, Palatine, and his son, who was also killed.
John Niarri Petri, Fort Herkimer.
*Lieut. Dederiah Marx Petrie, Herkimer.
Dr. William Petry, Fort Herkimer, Committee of Safety.
+Joseph Petry, Dayton.
*Captain Samuel Pettingill, Mohawk.
+Adam Price, Minden.
Nicholas Pritchard, Minden.
RichardPutnam, Mohawk.
Abraham D. Quackenboss.
+Jacob Rachiour, Minden.
George Raynor, Minden.
Captain Nicholas Rector, Garoga.
Col. John Roof.
Marx Raspach, Kingsland.
Henry Sanders, Minden.
Sampson Sammons, Fonda, Committee of Safety.
Jacob Sammons, Fonda, (uncle of Col. Simeon Sammons.)
*William Schaver.
Ensign John Jacob School, Palatine.
*Col. Saffreness Seeber, Canajoharie.
+Capt. Jacob Seeber, Canajoharie.
+Maj. William Seeber, Canajoharie.
+Private Henry Seeber, Canajoharie.
*Private James Seeber, Canajoharie.
Lieut. John Seeber, Minden,
*Audolph Seeber, Minden.
Peter Sitz, Palatine.
Rudolph Siebert.
Henry Spencer, Indian Interpreter.
Christian Schell, Little Falls.
George Smith, Palatine.
Henry Smith.
Col. Henry Staring, (ancestor of Hon. John H. Starin, of Fultonville, who now represents the Nineteenth District of New York in Congress.)
Capt. Rudolph Shoemaker, Conajoharie.
*Joseph Snell, Snellbush, now Manheim.
*Jacob Snell, Snellbush, now Manheim.
Peter Snell, Snellbush, now Manheim.
George Snell, Snellbush, now Manheim.
[The above were brothers.]
*John Snell, Stone Arabia.
*John Snell, Jr., Stone Arabia.
[A son of George, and a fifer.]
*Frederick Snell, Snellbush.
[Of the Snells, Mr. Simms writes: It has been said for many years that nine Snells went into the battle and that seven of the number remained there. We have made an effort to trace them out, and here is the result thus far: Five brothers and a relation, perhaps a cousin, and a son of one of the brothers.]
Lieut. Jeremiah Swarts, Mohawk.
John G. Sillenbeck.
John Shults, Palatine.
George Shults, Stone Arabia.
Peter Summer.
Adam Thumb, Palatine.
Jacob Timmerman, St. Johnsville.
+Lieut. Henry Timmerman, St. Johnsville.
Henry Thompson, Fultonville.
Lieut. Martin C. Van Alstyne, Canajoharie.
*John Van Antwerp.
George Van Deusen, Canajoharie.
Henry Vedder.
+Conrad Vols (now Foltz) German Flats.
Lieut. Jacob Vols, German Flats.
*Major Harmanus Van Slyck, Palatine.
*Major Nicholas Van Slyck.
Capt. John Visscher, Mohawk.
+Lieut.-Col. Henry Walradt, German Flats.
George Walter, Palatine.
Major George E. Watts.
Lieut.-Col. Peter Waggoner, Palatine.
Lieut. Peter Waggoner, Jr., Palatine.
George Waggoner, Palatine.
John Waggoner, Palatine, (whose descendants are the Wagner family, of Palatine Bridge.)
Jacob Wagner, Canajoharie.
John Wagner, Canajoharie.
Garret WaJrath.
Lieut. Henry Walrath.
Peter Westerman, Canajoharie.
*John Wollover, Fort Herkimer.
Abraham Wollover, Fort Herkimer.
+Peter Wollover, Fort Herkimer.
*Richard Wollover, Fort Herkimer.
Jacob Wever, German Flats.
Peter Jams Weaver, German. Flats.
Michael Widrick, Schuyler.
Lawrence Wrenkle, Fort Herkimer.
+Dr. Moses Younglove, Surgeon.
Captain Robert Yates.
+Nicholas Yerdon, Minden.
**Jacob Yonker, Oppenheim.

*Killed, +Wounded **Taken Prisoner